narvik

Thanks for the update.

RE: AliPay vs. WeChat
Although both are used in Beijing and Shanghai, I reckon Alipay is more a Shanghai thing, whereas Wechat is dominant in Beijing.
I.e. you're better off with Alipay in Shanghai anyways.

moondog

Since we have that massive wx/ap thread, I'll keep this brief, but I can't recall ever seeing a bricks and mortar merchant anywhere that accepted one and not the other.

For online purchases, if the vendor is owned by Baba or Tencent, it is often difficult or impossible to pay using the competing platform, but this isn't a regional issue.

narvik

It wasn't a coincidence that most health stuff in Shanghai went through Alipay and in Beijing through Wechat.
I look at which QR code is prominently displayed in the two cities.
I stand by my assertion. 😛

joejones

I'm a little surprised that it is not mentioned in the State Department's advisory, but cybersecurity is one area where you may want to take extra care, especially if you handle trade secrets of any kind. From what I can gather, for the last several years, most savvy MNCs require employees to take "burner" phones and laptops to China that are set up to access everything through a VPN connection, so that no sensitive data is stored on the device itself, and to keep said devices with them at all times and only use their own chargers/dongles. This is of course good practice wherever you go, but there are particularly a lot of stories coming out of business travel to China where people suddenly find weird spyware on their devices etc.

narvik

Because in the USA cybersecurity is not a thing?
Surely anyone dealing with sensitive data should use the same precautions no matter where they are in the world, no?

joejones

You would think. But in practice, many companies find remote desktop over VPN to be too slow and clunky for day-to-day use, so they let people keep files locally on their devices. This is especially true for smaller companies, but even large companies can have surprisingly unsophisticated IT departments.

China is a particularly risky location because it's one of the few countries that has the technical resources and know-how to perform state-sponsored industrial espionage -- and it does a pretty good job.

moondog

I always use WeChat at hospitals/clinics/dentists in Shanghai.
It doesn't matter if establishments feature one more prominently than the other if they accept both (which, is almost always the case).

travelinmanS

I think he may be talking about the famous “health codes” of glory days gone by.

SkyTeam777

If I have a 10-year tourist visa in an expired U.S. passport, can I use that to enter China using my current passport as a tourist? Hoping to go to Guilin this fall.

moondog

Yes..

SkyTeam777

The strange part is that one of the numbers appears to have slightly rubbed off the paper sticker, and each time I enter China, it causes a flurry of concern among the agents. It's ridiculous...you'd think they can scan it and see the validity another way using my passport number and other info on the visa label.

narvik

That's always tough.
(My current passport is just about falling apart. I'm desperately trying to keep it going until it expires in 4 years, but I doubt it will make it that long.)